APRIL - Mark Reviews Movies

April, Metrograph Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 24, 2025

Writer/director Déa Kulumbegashvili tells a straightforward and increasingly familiar story with April in a sometimes abstract and nearly inscrutable way. It's the story of a doctor who works at a major hospital near a rural part of the country of Georgia, and in her off-hours, she provides medical services to those who are unable or unwilling to go to said hospital, lest their private matters become part of some official record. The character, by the way, is an OB/GYN, so those services primarily are in providing contraceptives, which can be something of a taboo in this region, and abortions, which could be illegal depending on the circumstances.

There are two key components of Kulumbegashvili's narrative. The first is a matter of the conflict between Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), the aforementioned doctor, and the policies, bureaucracy, and social stigmas that prevent her and other medical professionals from actually offering a full range of health care to women who want or need it. That is portrayed here in stark, unflinching realism, beginning with a live birth, shot from an overheard view and without any editing, and culminating in Nina performing an obscured abortion on a dining room table, in a lengthy still shot.

The consequences of these two moments will eventually haunt Nina and drive the minimal plot forward or toward its end, and while both result in tragedy, neither tragedy is the doctor's fault. Don't tell that to the people who want to find some blame, including some members of the hospital's administration, and don't tell that to Nina, either, who knows on a professional level that none of what happens is her fault. That doesn't change how she feels about those tragedies on a personal level.

Kulumbegashvili's more enigmatic approach to the movie here comes from that depiction of Nina, which is the other central component of the story. Here's the portrait of a woman who knows she does the best by her patients—whether they actually come to the hospital where she works or seek her services at their homes—and only acts within the confines of her morality—even and especially if it goes outside what others believe or the restrictions of the law, because that means she is only one willing to do that work.

Nina has made some sacrifices for this to be possible, but that's not an issue to her. The only unacceptable sacrifice for Nina would be to go against her principles or to allow fear to define her actions or result in inaction. The whole of the story forces Nina into positions in which going along with some rule she doesn't believe in or doing what others want her to would certainly make things much easier for her. First, it's the death of the newborn baby from that birth scene, leading fellow doctor and former lover David (Kakha Kintsurashvili), who tries to convince her to start a family, to lead an investigation into the death. Second, it's Nina's efforts to help a teenage girl who's pregnant, which could lead to trouble for her and the entire family.

There's a real, tangible conflict and sense of momentum to this story, then, as we watch Nina confront authority, try to negotiate the two sides—the official one and the extracurricular one—of her career, and feel the pressure of that easy option as circumstances force her into a corner. Kulumbegashvili, however, wants to do more with this story, mainly in providing some ancillary details about Nina's life and adding a surreal, existential angle to the entirety of the tale. They're intriguing, to be sure, but, ultimately, feel like distractions from a character study that's quite effective in sense of realism.

The whole of this uncertain side of the narrative is pretty much embodied in a metaphor that runs through the movie. It's our introduction to the story, really, as the movie opens with a string of images and sounds. Eventually, we discover that we're seeing a river and hearing Nina as a child just before an incident that would paralyze the young girl in fear. Out of that moment, perhaps, is born a haggard, wrinkly figure, who emerges from the river and follows just behind Nina over the course of this story.

Who or what is this entity? Based on where it goes (sitting in the same quiet stillness at the kitchen table Nina had recently sat), we suspect it is Nina in some form, and based on what it does, we come to feel that it's either some part of the character that does want to conform to other people's standards or some possible future for Nina if she were to do so. It's an haunting image and, whichever way we're supposed to take it, idea, to be sure, but compared to the more practical side of this tale, the puzzling metaphor simply feels like a flourish for the sake of it.

When April is tightly focused on the character and the specific professional and ethical dilemmas in front of her, it makes its point clearly and with a sense of immediacy. There are other things, though, that slow the momentum and muddy the purpose of this story (from long shots of the natural world to Nina's sexual exploits in the middle of the night), and they ultimately make the whole of the movie more confounding than revelatory.

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